"A Discovery of Witches" | S2:E1 | An Analysis (contains details of E1)

The following analysis is solely my own. Some of it offers an opinion while recapping the episode. Anything written below is created by the blog's author who is an inspired fan with the intention of promoting the work. If you enjoy reading this, please leave a comment here or on Instagram @thataddamsgirl.

Episode runtime 44 minutes including S1 recap

Shudder TV episode description: "Matthew and Diana arrive in 1590’s London and are confronted by a face from Matthew’s past." 

If you have not watched episode 1 of season 2, please do not read further to not be spoiled.

Two years after the release of season 1, fans are finally getting to see where Matthew Clairmont, a vampire, and Diana Bishop, a witch, have gone when they time walked out of the present to Elizabethan England in 1590. We don't see a wormhole or the actual process other than they hold each other's hands, never to let go, and then pick up their foot and simultaneously take a step together. 

The menacing trio of Gerbert, Peter and Satu, arrive from Italy and are up in the attic bedroom searching for the couple but are too late. They realize Matthew and Diana slipped away. The powers of deduction help them determine that they time walked. They don't know anything else, but the intention to find them is strong.

London 1590 and there are three witches at a bonfire for Halloween. The oldest witch played by Sheila Hancock says she senses a witch is arriving that night.

It wouldn't be a compelling drama if everything went according to plan. When Matthew and Diana land, it's a few steps from a house that Matthew knows, but they had intended to go to the countryside, perhaps Woodstock, outside of Oxford, England. They end up in London and encounter a very shocked and protective Christopher "Kit" Marlowe (Tom Hughes) entering with lethal hostility directed towards Diana. Kit is a daemon and immediately senses that Diana is a witch. Shocked servants Francoise and Pierre, also vampires, greet the two at the same time. Matthew has to quickly create a cover story for their relationship and tells all of them that she's his wife and the lady of the house. 

Matthew and Diana didn't know each other 3 weeks ago.
Wife? (S2, E1, Diana portrayed by Teresa Palmer)

Holly Aird as Francoise and Milo Twomey as Pierre, servants at The Hart and Crown

The TV adaptation from the second book in the All Souls Trilogy, Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness, moves the story forward as Diana is intrigued by what she's learned in a short introduction that Matthew Clairmont is really Matthew Roydon, the mysterious member of the School of Night, which includes Sir Walter Raleigh (Michael Lindall) and the Earl of Northumberland aka Henry Percy (Adam Sklar, a deaf actor cast as a deaf character). However, Matthew is suddenly contemplating what this identity means for his role during this time period.

It's 1590 and Diana doesn't know what she doesn't know. She thinks it's the best place to be to locate The Book of Life. It was idealistic of Matthew to think that they can, "Lay low, get what they need, and get out again, no mess." He hates complications. It's why he wanted to escape with Diana into another time to avoid having to confront being put on trial by the Congregation, an organization that forbids interspecies relationships between witches and vampires. 

Tom Hughes as Christopher "Kit" Marlowe
Worried his bromance with Matthew is coming to an end.

Kit challenges her; she's a threat. Watch the methods he uses to divide Matthew and Diana (Hughes is brilliant in his delivery and physicality). Kit can't believe that Matthew would marry a witch because, in 1590, witches and vampires are enemies. He leaves temporarily, saying to Matthew, "Until you are you again, I shall imagine you a stranger." But he's back within a short time, drowning his bad mood with the house wine in the dining area. 

Percy and Raleigh meet Diana. Matthew explains that Diana needs a teacher having missed out on receiving any witchcraft teaching as a child. Kit grows even more irritated by her needs and tries to gaslight the situation on the matter of finding a "book of mysteries"... "if it exists," says Kit. Diana speaks assuredly, matter-of-factly, "It exists." She's a woman beyond the times.

Oh, the friction between Kit and Diana.
Gulp copious amounts of red wine.
(Matthew Goode as Matthew Roydon)

Gillian (Louise Brealey) in season 1, discriminates against vampires, but especially Matthew, and refers to him as "that" in S1 E3. Kit Marlowe does the same and calls Diana "that" in season 2. 

Dashing off to re-orient himself. Gone are the blue suits of the present seen in season 1. His color palette is black; slimming black leather, doublets, cloak, hat, cape; rings on the fingers.

Diana agrees to lay low, closing with, "But no one is keeping me anywhere." She whips around as Matthew says he's going out. Ever the man of mystery, he also holds back the details when she asks, "What for?" 

While Diana settles in for the night, she discovers, a "new way of seeing and knowing," she later says. She spots outside the house Sophie (Aisling Loftus), or so she thinks; the daemon woman from season 1 who had given her the chess piece to help them time walk. She follows and then loses her. Diana quickly realizes the woman is a witch and an ancestor of Sophie, Susanna Norman, who possibly can teach her to master her magic.

Matthew returns and loudly livid at the idea of Diana following Susanna; Diana possibly could have been lured by this witch's magic. He's impatient. We're seeing how much he's excessively protective like she's something fragile. This is the Matthew Roydon of 1590. He accuses Diana of not sharing things with him, but he held back information and the double standard seems suitable to him. She reiterates that she's not going to stay locked up in there and she'll go "find that witch herself" if he won't find her. It's an "a-ha" moment for her as he teeters on losing control. But he softens by the morning in a sweet moment, of course, shirtless, and flashing the bicep, makes everything sweeter. We're back on even ground for a moment. He tells her he's going to show her around the city as long as Francoise has her new dress. Some poor seamstress had to be up all night getting the garment sewn for her. Indeed, it is beautiful with embroidery and accessories.

The first stroll down Water Ln. is spectacular in every way. The production designer's attention to detail makes London in 1590 its own star of the new series. Diana's beaming smile, her thrilling energy, and her astonishment at seeing St. Paul's Cathedral are what we've been waiting for as we live through her joy. Teresa Palmer is incredibly watchable in emitting natural confidence and enthusiasm. "I keep thinking, now it finally feels real." Matthew is refreshingly light-hearted; teases a turn back to go home. Their outing lifts the weight of all that they're tasked to accomplish. However, the happiness is short-lived, artfully demonstrated upon rounding a corner. He realizes that he's been spotted by a man who we learn works for Cecil Burghley at The Tower of London. This puts a dour cast on the rest of the afternoon for Diana. She has to wait at The Hart and Crown for him and it stretches past the dinner hours.

Matthew is the master of manipulation and gets information from a local spy, hinting that it possibly is William Shakespeare even though he first calls him Master Pole (Simon Meacock) and later softly calls him William. The Matthew Roydon that got displaced when they showed up was up in Berwick steering the King of Scotland's focus on more than the witches being rounded up; "sowing the seeds of chaos." Matthew tells Burghley he left Berwick when he finished his errand because he didn't want to be caught. Burghley commands more out of Matthew; he's "missed his methods of persuasion." Notice here how Burghley's word choice in saying, "No slipping away without my leave," is just like when Gerbert, Knox and Satu were sensing he was slipping when he and Diana time walked out of Madison, NY. Matthew does, indeed, have a way of being slippery.

Meanwhile, restless and being kept at home, Diana does what any other lady of the house with idle hands would do. She goes snooping and finds in Matthew's study what really he's been up to, much to the concern of Francoise. It comes down to the fact that he's a spy for Queen Elizabeth I, her "trusty shadow," and that he's been betraying his own faith of Catholicism by identifying Catholics for the Protestant queen. When she confronts Matthew asking, "Why do you do it?" he says, "Because it is my duty," and Diana finishes the thought with, "To your father." 

Matthew reacts to the sheer mention of Philippe de Clermont as if he can push the thought of his father out of his mind by tightly shutting his eyelids. He says, "Come to bed," in hopes she'll just let it go, but this does not sway her focus. He further explains that he fulfilled his father's wishes to be the spy in an English court despite his faith. We can see he's compartmentalized his life -- this duty of 400 years ago crept back with his return. Matthew is troubled by the unavoidable truckload of treachery. As he feels satisfied he's answered enough questions for the night, his last words are spoken warmly, "You're the one thing that makes sense," and the conversation is over... or at least for now.

Cut to the fresh morning of Kit begrudgingly leading the witch Susanna Norman with Henry Percy and Walter Raleigh trailing her. She's not happy to be in the presence of a vampire and Matthew is cold towards her, too; distrustful. The witch doesn't want to admit she senses Diana is a witch while testing her, but Diana cannot perform like she did in Madison with lighting candles inside the pumpkins. She only ends up causing the fruit in front of her to rot. Matthew has to intervene to stop whatever she's doing. The witch blames Diana's misuse of her powers for the reasons that the witches in Scotland are being hunted down by people like Matthew, "her husband," she says. Uh, so how did she know that he was her husband? 

People on Water Ln. appear to change direction at the sight of Matthew or avoid any eye contact with him as they hurry along. Diana seeks to find out how people know they are husband and wife. Who's been spreading the information around? They encounter a child named Jack (Joshua Pickering, perfectly cunning in this role) just as he's about to pickpocket Diana. Jack divulges that he heard that she was a witch from the tavern called The Lamb. During a meal around the table with Diana, Kit, Matthew, Percy, and Walter, Matthew casually asks who's recently been drinking at The Lamb. Raleigh steps up without suspicion as to the reason for the question and says that only Kit who would step foot in that place.

Kit's standing beneath the word "MUTATIO" which means "change." Is this like a headline alluding to already some impact Diana is making by being there? Will her actions change more than Kit and Matthew's relationship? Kit just glances back to Matthew and Walter without saying a word. Walter and Henry are told to leave until tomorrow while Matthew slowly moves to not signal his intentions and simply sets his wine goblet on the mantel while saying that he knows Kit has been talking to people about Diana. Instantly, Matthew's hands are on Kit's neck, choking him. Kit tries to explain that Matthew is meant to be up north with Gallowglass, whom we've not met, yet. Matthew warns him that he's going to end him if he continues to spread rumors. Diana convinces Matthew that they have to tell him about what they've done or he'll continue to cause problems until she's gone. She explains that they both time walked and that's why Matthew is not the Matthew he knows. It's soul-crushing for him to grasp that the Matthew Roydon he knew is displaced and, as much as she tries, he appears deceived.

Recall for a moment that Matthew has been alive for over 1,500 years, a vampire for all but about 37 years. Vampires "mate" forever, but he has never mated even though he's been able to love other women, even admitting as much to Diana. It was The Book of Life that united Matthew and Diana. But Kit and Matthew's history precedes them. Kit is a poet, and he can wield words as if they're daggers. He wrote in Hero and Leander, "Who ever lov'd, that lov'd not at first sight?"

Diana later at night ascends the stairs hoping to find Matthew and it is actually Kit; he can sense her missing Matthew. He chances to question Matthew's loyalty to her. "He's gone out. He didn't wake you?" They've only been together a few weeks. She hides her feelings and maintains her position of knowing Matthew's tendencies. Kit attempts a gesture of false sympathy, warning her that this Matthew is different; her Matthew is gentler. He was nearly choked to death and still thinks he's gentler? Matthew's other daemon friend Hamish, in the last episode of season 1, warned her that going back in the past will change Matthew. She didn't want to listen. She cautiously joins Kit by the fire. He plainly tells her that she's out of her depth and she replies saying that he doesn't know her. Up until now, her optimism has driven her belief in Matthew that he is good and safe to be with because she has projected an idealized image onto Matthew. She's always observed that he is in control. She tells her aunts and herself that he's incapable of hurting her. They're mated to each other--that's all that matters. 

Drinking wine together, Tom Hughes is incredibly adept at portraying Kit in a smooth and cool manner of speaking, unveiling Matthew's technique, using familiar phrases he knows Diana cannot deny are her own experience.

Knowing he can't penetrate Matthew's heart, he instead picks on the one who's closest to Matthew's heart. Kit's words leave a long-lasting pain of disappointment as if she's seeing for the first time the man behind the curtain in the land of Oz. 

The Tower of London is a formidable structure, but especially at night. The episode ends with Matthew dressed like a master of the craft of dominating someone into submission, and with a nod, orders a prisoner to be killed. His face curiously watching the prisoner scream in pain. The scene allows us a side of a man we haven't met until he arrived in 1590.

Watch the show on Shudder or Sundance Now for free until January 18, 2021. In the U.S., subscribing to AMC+ provides four networks in one bundle that includes those two mentioned as well as AMC and IFC Films. More photos, videos, and other updates on the A Discovery of Witches Facebook site.